I've been absent from HQ, my subscription ran out and I have not renewed yet. I think part of that is "protection" from spending too much time there when I have work to do here

I was wondering where you had been lately.

Well, if you no longer posting on HQ means a little more time to do work here, then I'm all for it.

And talk about valued insight, how would you tackle the following comment made on the NFBC boards about perceived limitations for sites like Mastersball:

Quote:

You do a great job at Masterballs. But in the NFBC most of the time players really worth a pickup are long gone. The players you may be keying on to watch are being picked up the week before. Hey it's a tough contest and many a Pro has learned that lesson!

How does one uncover lower-on-the-radar gems in an era where there are a multiplicity of instaneous fantasy sources attempting to do just that, on a daily basis? Is the criticism levelled by the above quote, warranted in your view?

_________________"This is Jeremy Schaap. I, like Barry Bremen, achieved through fakery, what I could not achieve in talent. Please don't mind the creepy mimicry of the speech cadence and voice inflection of my late father. Join me for my next ESPN report, EMBRACING NEPOTISM."

And talk about valued insight, how would you tackle the following comment made on the NFBC boards about perceived limitations for sites like Mastersball:

Quote:

You do a great job at Masterballs. But in the NFBC most of the time players really worth a pickup are long gone. The players you may be keying on to watch are being picked up the week before. Hey it's a tough contest and many a Pro has learned that lesson!

How does one uncover lower-on-the-radar gems in an era where there are a multiplicity of instaneous fantasy sources attempting to do just that, on a daily basis? Is the criticism levelled by the above quote, warranted in your view?

Let's call it ironic the specific shortcoming cited is the exact piece of advice that I have talked about for years in the NFBC - being the person a step ahead. There is nothing like knowing your league mates are going to the free agent list to set up their bids, only to discover you snagged the guy they want last week.

It is not our job to see into the future and know exactly when to pick players up.

it is our job to familiarize you with players that are potentially useful down the road, be it Minor Leaguers, eventual closers, talented guys backing up an injury prone starter, etc. It is also our job to sometimes suggest a rough time or means for a player to make it to the Bigs.

If the timing is right, we can do our best to say "pick him up this week", but often, this is as much of a gut call as it is smart. If I have a guy that is droppable and there is no one available that would be particularly useful, I'll take the flier on one of these speculative plays. Perry, Ryan and I play in a couple of NFBC-like leagues that run FAAB on Saturday night, so often we have a feel for guys that may be picked up Sunday night in the NFBC.

The task of getting everyone familiar with the names is done in Platinum. We project and profile everyone we feel will make an impact that season so you will already have their names in the spring. We provide Minor League rankings in a couple of different forms so you are covered there.

The tricky part is keeping up with the in-season surprises, for lack of a better word. We produce "rest-of-season" projections, which are one means of keeping stock of possible in-season call-ups as I will add players to the projection, even if they have not been promoted yet, if I feel they will get the call at some point in the season. Getting the word out otherwise will be done in one of two ways - via the free site articles or the message board. Perhaps if the interest is high, we can set up a weekly thread in the Platinum-only forum to discuss free agents for the upcoming week. To piggyback on another point about the site, this is the sort of advantage we have over other sites -- the direct access to us and the fact we PLAY in tout Wars, LABR and the NFBC. You would not just be reading an article every Thursday entitled "Possible Guys to FAAB a Week Early" and not have any interaction with the author.

To me, one of the latent gems of the site is the message board. I yearn to have ours as vibrant as Rotojunkie or BaseballHQ - it once was actually. But times have changed and it is quite difficult to build up a community when there are so many other more modern means of social and Internet interaction. But that does not mean we should not still try to use the forums to our advantage and reading the boards is a great way for users to get additional content, past that from the daily articles. As you can probably tell, I much prefer spending my time answering questions on the forums as opposed to coming up with a topic the reader may or may not care about for my "Tuesday" piece or whatever. Like I said, I am a forum rat

_________________Catchers are like prostate exams -- comes a time where you can't put if off any longer, so you may as well get it over with and take it up the butt - The Forum Funklord

I'd rather be wrong for the right reasons than right for the wrong reasons - The Forum Funklord

Always remember, never forget, never say always or never. - The Forum Funklord

You know you have to seek therapy when you see one of your pitchers had a bad night and it takes you 15 minutes to find the team you have him on. - The Forum Funklord

I read your post with questions about that format and I will be glad to discuss those in the Platinum only format - I say Platinum Forum because I think it does give added value to your Platinum Subscription when you can Todd or I or other writers here to answer your questions.

The other thing is that I plan on playing in those - have won and finished second in the format - and have some pretty specific answers/suggestions.....but I don't want to give those away.

Also as Todd said we are going to have a Mastersball entry in one where the drafting and all the decisions and questions involved in that draft will be discussed in the Platinum Forum

If the timing is right, we can do our best to say "pick him up this week", but often, this is as much of a gut call as it is smart. If I have a guy that is droppable and there is no one available that would be particularly useful, I'll take the flier on one of these speculative plays. Perry, Ryan and I play in a couple of NFBC-like leagues that run FAAB on Saturday night, so often we have a feel for guys that may be picked up Sunday night in the NFBC.

First off, a big thanks for taking the time to provide a very detailed response. I am humbled by your generosity -- which only prompts me to want to contribute to this site even more, to what seems like a vibrant community.

Secondly, I have never played in a FAAB league before. Would like to try one out this year, for the hell of it. Saw a lot of material here for how to approach it. Kind of makes it less daunting knowing there is a lot of practical advice here.

Todd Zola wrote:

The task of getting everyone familiar with the names is done in Platinum. We project and profile everyone we feel will make an impact that season so you will already have their names in the spring. We provide Minor League rankings in a couple of different forms so you are covered there.

I'm not totally familiar with all the tools and offerings of this site. Essentially, for now, what you're saying is that effort has been focused on providing rankings for Hitters and Pitchers, which represent the player population that we as drafters are most likely to target in our drafts right now (given the always tenuous state of info we have in the off season) and then these same players will each have a write-up come January? Don't know how to use the CVRC. Is it like HQ's value generating engine? In the meantime then, are we to construct our rankings by joining the hitting and pitching lists ourselves or can the site currently generate a default ranking combining both?

Todd Zola wrote:

The tricky part is keeping up with the in-season surprises, for lack of a better word. We produce "rest-of-season" projections, which are one means of keeping stock of possible in-season call-ups as I will add players to the projection, even if they have not been promoted yet, if I feel they will get the call at some point in the season. Getting the word out otherwise will be done in one of two ways - via the free site articles or the message board. Perhaps if the interest is high, we can set up a weekly thread in the Platinum-only forum to discuss free agents for the upcoming week. To piggyback on another point about the site, this is the sort of advantage we have over other sites -- the direct access to us and the fact we PLAY in tout Wars, LABR and the NFBC. You would not just be reading an article every Thursday entitled "Possible Guys to FAAB a Week Early" and not have any interaction with the author.

I’ve been reading you for a long time but never imagined you would take the time to interact with fantasy players online. I am sure everyone here is grateful that you’re taking the time to do this.

Todd Zola wrote:

To me, one of the latent gems of the site is the message board. I yearn to have ours as vibrant as Rotojunkie or BaseballHQ - it once was actually. But times have changed and it is quite difficult to build up a community when there are so many other more modern means of social and Internet interaction. But that does not mean we should not still try to use the forums to our advantage and reading the boards is a great way for users to get additional content, past that from the daily articles. As you can probably tell, I much prefer spending my time answering questions on the forums as opposed to coming up with a topic the reader may or may not care about for my "Tuesday" piece or whatever. Like I said, I am a forum rat

Well, if this is the best way to get your views, so be it. This site operates from a totally different perspective than most other pay sites, where most or a lot of the best content is reserved for subscribers. There is a free flow of valuable information on the free areas of this site – so much of it in fact that I hope those who see value in it, will do the honorable thing and become subscribers.

By the way, have your software people provided instructions on how to get around that “invalid token” screen? It still creeps up now and again.

Also, another glitch for me is that whenever a reply text goes over a certain amount of characters, the reply box tends to become ‘jumpy’ and stops scrolling. For this post, I have had to write it up on a Word page and then cut and paste it here. Is that a common occurrence?

_________________"This is Jeremy Schaap. I, like Barry Bremen, achieved through fakery, what I could not achieve in talent. Please don't mind the creepy mimicry of the speech cadence and voice inflection of my late father. Join me for my next ESPN report, EMBRACING NEPOTISM."

I read your post with questions about that format and I will be glad to discuss those in the Platinum only format - I say Platinum Forum because I think it does give added value to your Platinum Subscription when you can Todd or I or other writers here to answer your questions.

Quote:

No question about it. I can't think of too many people who have shown as much in the way of practical advice, attention to detail and with as much thoughtfulness as Todd has in the views he has graciously offered over the past few days. By the way, Captain -- what is the "Platinum Forum"? Is that an area that is only visible to subscribers?

Captain Hook wrote:

The other thing is that I plan on playing in those - have won and finished second in the format - and have some pretty specific answers/suggestions.....but I don't want to give those away.

Would love to have your views. I've finished 3rd last year but was mid-pack in several other slow leagues. As a first year player, lost some money but I didn’t finish lower than 8th. I know where I went wrong however I’m not 100% sure how to fix it. My disappointments were largely due to my lack of understanding of the NFBC drafter mindset and my failure to see trendlines within a larger context (trees are useful if you can climb them to see the forest). If there is a particular place where you might discuss your approach, please let me know where it might be and I'll gladly participate. Again, if I'm asking or stating the obvious, please forgive my lack of knowledge about this site. I assumed all forums were public here. I have 2 NFBC slow drafts coming up within days. I’d hate to go into it with another trial-and-error approach.

Captain Hook wrote:

Also as Todd said we are going to have a Mastersball entry in one where the drafting and all the decisions and questions involved in that draft will be discussed in the Platinum ForumHope that helps,PVH

Would love to contribute. I’ll await your instructions on how the Platinum Forum works. Thanks so much for taking the time to chime in as you have. I can’t wait to read you more in depth.

_________________"This is Jeremy Schaap. I, like Barry Bremen, achieved through fakery, what I could not achieve in talent. Please don't mind the creepy mimicry of the speech cadence and voice inflection of my late father. Join me for my next ESPN report, EMBRACING NEPOTISM."

Todd is working on setting up new subscribers with access to the Platinum Forum which already exists (you just can't see it yet)

When does your draft start?

and I would love more explanation of this from your post......"My disappointments were largely due to my lack of understanding of the NFBC drafter mindset and my failure to see trendlines within a larger context (trees are useful if you can climb them to see the forest)."

Not sure what you think the NFBC mindset is - there are as many as there are players in the event.Also the 50 round no FA, "draft & hold" if you will events are pretty similar to regular NFBC drafts for the first ten rounds or so.

Todd is working on setting up new subscribers with access to the Platinum Forum which already exists (you just can't see it yet)

When does your draft start?

and I would love more explanation of this from your post......"My disappointments were largely due to my lack of understanding of the NFBC drafter mindset and my failure to see trendlines within a larger context (trees are useful if you can climb them to see the forest)."

Not sure what you think the NFBC mindset is - there are as many as there are players in the event.Also the 50 round no FA, "draft & hold" if you will events are pretty similar to regular NFBC drafts for the first ten rounds or so.

Perry, just saw this. Will answer in the Platinum Forum. Thx.

_________________"This is Jeremy Schaap. I, like Barry Bremen, achieved through fakery, what I could not achieve in talent. Please don't mind the creepy mimicry of the speech cadence and voice inflection of my late father. Join me for my next ESPN report, EMBRACING NEPOTISM."

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